So baby Clint is now 1 years old! He had an awesome birthday party! Got lots of gifts and had fun with family. But many of you care more about Marvel Clint right now. Specially considering I am killing him. lol

Present Day

The Avengers (minus one) all stood around the door for medical waiting for news of their missing member. It hadn't been that long ago that they had found the archer and doc. Once found, Clint was brought right into surgery and everyone else was told to wait outside. Tony had been the only one to see the duo until this point. At the time, when Tony first spotted Bruce standing outside the cave that Hulk had hidden the missing Avengers in, the genius felt like nothing was wrong. But as he descended, JARVIS noted Bruce's accelerated heart rate. Noting such, Tony frowned and watched as the doc rushed back into the cave. Tony almost dismissed the issue until he realized that Clint hadn't been outside as well. With his own sense of panic, Tony had rushed after the doctor.

"Tony! He's unconscious!" Bruce had shouted as soon as the Iron Man landed. "You have to get him to medical! NOW!"

Tony didn't even have a second to process what he was seeing before he numbly nodded at Bruce's words. Noting that Tony was falling into a sort of shock at Clint's damaged state, JARVIS briefly took over the suit. Together, JARVIS and Bruce loaded Clint into Iron Man's arms as gently as they could. Clint's grunts and moans of pain drew Tony out of his shock long enough for his fantastic mind to understand that he was holding his dying teammate. As soon as he understood that, Tony began to have a rather large panic attack, so once again JARVIS took over the suit and flew it off toward the Helicarrier waiting in the distance. Tony was so out of it that he didn't hear the cry of surprise from the other Avengers as he flew past the Quinjet that was now left to pick up Bruce.

That all happened over two hours prior. Bruce had gotten rescued only a few minutes after Tony landed on the Helicarrier deck and was not pleased by what he saw waiting for him when the Quinjet arrived back at the Helicarrier. Rather than rushing off with the dying patient, two nurses and a doctor patiently waited for the Quinjet. Bruce was so pissed off that he almost Hulked out on them for waiting to check on him, rather than working on Clint. As Bruce screamed at the nurses, the others, having not really knowing how close they were/are to loosing Clint, headed off toward Medical to check on their archer. They meet up with Tony at the door to Medical. He had stripped his suit off and laid it in a corner of the room.

"Is it really that bad?" Natasha questioned when she noticed the discarded suit. Tony looked over to her.

"He wasn't breathing."

"If there was any tampering, sir, it wasn't at this end."

"At this end?"

"Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open up from both sides."

"Did you guys know that Clint was from the circus?" Bruce suddenly asked after almost another hour had passed with no updates. Natasha, who was sitting in a folding chair across from the Medical door, frowned. She had sort of remembered hearing something about that. But it was from so long ago, she wasn't sure if she could trust her memory. Tony, who had collapsed on the right side of the doorway, had his eyes bug out in surprise. He had no idea but now was getting some great ideas for some new nicknames and practical jokes to pull on the archer once Clint got better. Steve shook his head no, a small smile on his face at the news as he relaxed into another folding chair beside Natasha.

"What is a circus?" Thor retorted, having never heard of such a thing before. His pacing stopped as he stared at Bruce. The doctor almost laughed before smirking and trying to figure out how to explain what a circus was. Before he could, Tony stood up and placed a hand on the Asgardian's shoulder.

"I'll bring you to one, once Katniss recovers," Tony responded without missing a beat. Thor smiled and nodded his thanks to the genius. He was beginning to understand that when the others couldn't explain something than they'd just show him. Bruce smirked, wondering if Clint would care that the others now knew. But considering how much the archer knew about the others, it was only even. "How did you find out about that?"

"He told me," Bruce answered, not realizing the problem this may cause with the others. There was a long minute of silence as the other Avengers stared at Bruce. Feeling something off, he glanced up at them. Natasha looked stunned, Steve was surprised, Tony seemed shock and Thor had a confused expression. Realizing what he said and how he said it, Bruce grimaced. "We needed to keep him conscious. Without much else to do, we talked about his past."

"He willingly opened up?" Natasha inquired. Bruce nodded.

"Well, what else did he tell you?" Tony pressed. Bruce frowned, unsure if he should actually tell the others about everything Clint had discussed. Would the archer be fine with the info shared? How much of it was supposed to stay secret? Was any of it? Well, Bruce was certain of one thing. Keeping it too himself was not good for team bonding. So even if it meant that Clint and his relationship took a hit, Bruce had to share. With a deep sigh, Bruce told everyone all the stories that Clint told him.

"Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock. He means to bury us."

"Like the pharaohs of old."

"He's right. The portal is collapsing in on itself. We're got maybe two minutes before this goes critical."

"Well then."

As Bruce finished the last story, the doors opened to Medical. In shock, all the Avengers jumped to their feet. It of course ended in disappointment when the person who exited the doors was just a newly released patient. At the sight of the Avengers (minus one) the agent almost had a heart attack. After taking a moment to recover the agent slipped past the group as they began to relax back into their seats from before. No spoke for a bit. Then Tony got too aggravated with the silence and waiting.

"This is such a pain in the ass!" Tony whined. "I want to know how he is!"

"Don't we all, Stark," Natasha snarled. Tony sighed deeply before suddenly snickering.

"Was your name really Natalia?" he asked. Natasha sighed deeply. Slowly, almost as if she'd regret every movement, she nodded. Tony snorted in a humor that only he would understand.

"Did you choose Natasha?" Steve questioned. Natasha nodded. "What made you choose that?"

"It was close enough to my own name. And I... I had used Natasha as my cover enough that there would be no hesitation when someone called me it. So, it just seemed to work," Natasha admitted. Steve nodded.

"Is that why you don't tend to change your name when undercover?" Bruce inquired. Natasha nodded.

"As I said, Natasha was originally a cover name. So once I changed my name over to that for S.H.I.E.L.D, I just never saw the point in faking my name. Now a days, I only use a cover when working with a partner and mostly all of the time, my partner is Clint," Natasha mentioned.

"It was mentioned that you did not originally fit within S.H.I.E.L.D. Why would you trust in the Eyes of Hawk?" Thor added. Natasha sighed deeply.

"Clint and I met once before. He was only seventeen. Naive as fuck. Already had a bunch of kills under his belt. His boss had sent him after one of my marks. Knowing that I couldn't do the job alone and sending the boy in alone was a death sentence, I promised to train him if he helped me. Needless to say, two weeks later, we killed the mark and I didn't see him again until S.H.I.E.L.D was after me," Natasha concluded. Bruce frowned. There were so many more details that had gotten left out. Then again, he was used to Clint's versions of stories. And the archer was rather elaborate on details. Almost as if each event could have happened the day before.

"You trained him in only two weeks?" Steve called, incredulously. Natasha nodded and shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal. And technically, it wasn't. Everyone had seen that Clint was fast at learning new things.

"He was a quick study. Claimed that some guy named Trick made sure he learned fast or died trying," Natasha stated.

"How much more do you know about Clint?" Tony muttered. "How much more could have happened to him?"

"A lot," a new voice mentioned as it entered into the Avenger's space. The group jumped just slightly at the voice before looking to see Director Nick Fury standing before them. "Clint was orphaned by age 6, raped at as early as age 13, joined the Army at 16, killed at 17 and was recruited at 18. Here in S.H.I. , he went through many handlers before I dropped him onto Coulson. Then the bastard goes and saves her, gets married, gets divorced and then gets possessed."

"Jeez... How old is he? Forty?" Tony half joked. Fury shook his head.

"26."

There was a long pause for this. No one said anything. They just stared at Fury in shock and surprise. Even Natasha, who had known about some of Clint's past before, and had met Clint when he was 17 had never done the math to realize how old Clint was. Learning about it from Fury was an even bigger shocker to the team. Originally, they had all thought that Steve was the only one in his twenties. Course Tony always joked that Steve was 90 something.

"You're joking. Right?" Tony practically begged. Fury shook his head no.

"I was there as Director for only my second year when Coulson brought him to my attention. He had been reviewed before and denied but I trusted Coulson. Two years later, I handed Clint back over to him. I claimed then, 'fix him, or kill him.' And we all know what happened then," Fury described.

"Need these vehicles."

"Who's that?"

"Didn't tell me."

"Hill, do you copy? Barton is..."

Another two hours passed without a single word on Clint's status. Even Fury hadn't been able to get an answer as to how his favorite archer was doing. The Avengers were getting really tense. Tony and Steve had already had a pretty big argument which left Tony pouting in the hallway, looking over his once discarded suit and Steve place in the corner of the room furthest from Tony. Bruce had almost Hulked out when a passing secretary tried to drop off coffee to the group. He of course apologized for the behavior but the poor woman was already too frightened to see if she really believed him. Thor, who had gotten bored faster than the others, had begun to toss Mjolnir up and down but the first time he dropped it, Natasha draped her legs over it as if the hammer was a footstool.

"This is ridiculous! We should have heard something by now!" Tony snapped, startling a lot of the others. "How could he have been this bad off?"

"Tony, he was bleeding internally in at least two areas, a minimum of two broken ribs, his left leg was broken, his ankle shattered, a concussion, and so much more. That's not even counting the second to third degree burns over most of his body," Bruce commented. Everyone focused on the doc. As Tony and he had been the only two to see the archer, and even then, Tony had been rather out of it, none of them had any idea of what to expect.

"Was it really that bad?" Natasha whispered, feeling dread begin to creep up on her. Bruce frowned, wishing he could give her better news. But slowly he nodded. Her gasp of shock and trying hard to hold back tears tore at the other's hearts.

"That's why we chatted. I needed to keep him awake. If he slept, there would be no shot. He had just fallen asleep when I spotted Tony. But even that long, he could have slipped from us," Bruce admitted. His response was met with silence. None of them really wanted to understand that Clint basically died on them. Hell, no one wanted to think that the archer may already have died and no one wanted to tell them.

"How did this happen?" Natasha mumbled before dropping her head into her hands. She had been on the opposite side of the battle when the building blew. For all she knew, Clint had gotten surrounded by the creatures and beaten.

"He was on that building that blew, wasn't he?" Tony softly mentioned. He had been nearby during the explosion but too distracted to notice. Slowly, Tony moved away from his suit to stand in the doorway that lead to the hallway. With a deep sigh, he leaned against the frame. "Why didn't he just get off?"

"Clint was trapped by the creatures you guys were fighting. He called out to Agent Harris over the comms but the other agent still fired anyway. I think... Hulk may have seen Clint in the debris and went to rescue him," Bruce told the others. Steve jerked up at the news.

"Agent Harris's report mentioned that Clint said he was in another building a good distance away," Steve stated, having been the only one to read the reports of the other agents. While Tony had been working to find Bruce and Clint, he had gone back and tried to find out why Hulk would kidnap Clint.

"I was in the HQ truck on scene. Clint clearly said he was trapped. And even after the fact when we were stuck in that cave, Clint told me a second time that he called out," Bruce explained as if Steve was accusing him of lying rather than the S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

"Are you guys saying that Harris did this intentionally?" Tony muttered darkly. He had a hard time believing that Harris would have been able to get away with it if it was true but then again... S.H.I.E.L.D was a spy group. Natasha jumped to her feet with a shocked look on her face. Then it slowly darkened into such a face that the men shied away from her. With a huff, she stormed off. After a pause to recover, Steve realized where she was going and rushed after her. "Do you really think it's possible?"

"Clint had mentioned that since Loki, he had a lot of people in S.H.I.E.L.D that wouldn't mind if he died," Bruce claimed. Tony frowned, remembering such conversation. Natasha had said back than that no one blamed Clint for what he did under Loki's control. But what if they actually did and just never admitted it? What if it took them this long to plan the best way to do it? Or what if this just happened to be the first time someone had the best chance of succeeding? Before he could mention his fears, the doors to Medical opened and one of the doctors exited. Bruce jumped to his feet as Thor backed away from the wall and Tony entered more fully into the room. The doc was still dressed in rather bloody scrubs and almost seemed rather shaken. When he noticed that only Bruce, Tony and Thor were waiting, he seemed partly relieved.

"Where is Agent Romanoff?" the doc asked as if she was the only one he could speak too. Once the team had been created, Fury made sure that each of their files mentioned that they could hear everyone's medical status.

"She went for a short walk," Tony lied. The doc nodded, glad that he didn't have to relay this troubling news to her. "How's our little archer?"

"Well... We fixed the internal bleeding. That came from one of his broken ribs which we were also able to fix. His leg is in a splint and will be so for a few weeks. We had to add a rod to keep his bones together. The ankle looked more serious than it was. It actually ended up being a sprain. Even though the burns seemed bad, none of them were really over a minor second degree burn. A couple days of ointment and it should turn into a lovely tan," the doc informed them. They all nodded. Here is where he took a deep sigh and the others wondered how bad the news was going to get. "What I and the other doctors are most concerned with is his concussion mixed with lack of blood for such a long time. If he had one or the other, it'd be fine. But both is troubling news. Normally, we would try to keep the patient awake for signs of more trauma to the brain but... Due to his other more serious injuries, we had to knock him out. Our fear is... Well, he may not wake up."

"I do not understand. Why would he not awake if things are fixed?" Thor questioned, not really getting how limited human medicine really was. The doc sighed, having feared the worse.

"Sometimes, the damage done to the head could be too great. As we don't fully understand how the brain works, it could basically shut down. If that happens, Agent Barton won't be able to wake up. He'd be what we consider... Brain dead," the doctor described to the Asgardian. Thor looked troubled by this idea.

"Can we see him?" Bruce muttered, not wanting to hear any more about the chances of loosing Clint. The doctor nodded before leading the trio to Clint's room. Bruce was mildly surprised to see the room was a bigger room than necessary for just Clint but when he looked down the hall and saw the secondary bed just sitting there, he understood. They had removed the bed to make room for the sure to be waiting teammates. In silence, the three Avengers set themselves up around Clint's bed. Knowing that they now wouldn't leave, the doc mentioned that he'd get some more furniture for the group and left.

"The Tesseract is showing me so much. It's more than just knowledge, it's... Truth."

"I know. What did it show you, Agent Barton?"

"My next target."

"Tell me what you need."

"I'll need a distraction... And an eyeball."

Clint slowly came too sometime in the middle of the night. The room was dark and many of the monitors that were hooked up to him were silent. Glancing at his heart rate, Clint was glad that this was one of the silenced machines. He had been dreaming of Loki and whenever he did that, his heart would race. Slowly, cautiously, Clint looked about the room. He was used to S.H.I.E.L.D medical enough to know that the room size was larger than a single sized room. But as he spotted his teammates, he understood why he was in a double room.

The second bed had been traded out for a rather large and comfy looking couch that had Steve and Thor spread about the whole thing. Two small reading chairs from the waiting lounge sat on either side, each one holding another Avenger. Natasha was on Steve's side while Bruce was on Thor's. Not seeing Tony over there, Clint looked to the windows were he knew a large bay window sat. And indeed, sprawled out on the cushion was none other than the genius himself. Everyone looked to be fast asleep, a time that Clint rarely could catch everyone at.

"We feared you wouldn't wake up," called a familiar voice that didn't belong to any of the Avengers. Clint turned to face the doorway that was right before his bed. He was almost surprised to see Fury standing there. The Director wasn't normally one who visited his injured agents, no matter how friendly he was with them. Fury waved off the archer's confused expression, showing instead that he was there with news. "Harris is being suspended, pending full review of the whole situation."

"What? Why?" Clint asked knowing that he hadn't once complained about Agent Harris. Hell, Clint had no intention of reporting that Harris had heard the archer state he was in the building before he blew it up to kingdom come.

"Your friends believe Harris fired on the building even though he knew you were inside," Fury explained. Clint paused, thinking back on the whole event. Yeah, he had heard Harris mutter something like 'you deserve this,' but he didn't think anyone else had caught it. And yeah, Clint mentioned to Bruce that he had reported his position but... He never thought that Bruce would tell Fury. Slowly he nodded with a large frown on his face. Fury nearly laughed at the look. "We need to see what disciplinary actions need to be taken."

"I killed his fiancée," Clint stated as if that meant the whole even was justified. Fury raised an eyebrow. It almost sounded like Clint had resigned himself to die. But then again, last thing Fury knew, Clint hadn't been told who was killed during the attack on the Helicarrier. Nor did he ever plan on telling the agent. Clint lowered his gaze to patronize the Director. "Don't give me that look. I can clearly see who's not around."

"You being involved in her death does not forgive Agent Harris of his current actions. If something like that makes him believe he can get away with killing you, how can S.H.I.E.L.D trust him to make the right calls in the future?" Fury pointed out. Clint frowned, seeing the spin that Fury was already beginning to use to get rid of Agent Harris. There was another person to add onto his 'fucked up' list after Manhattan.

"How many others?" the archer nearly growled. Fury sighed. He never wanted Clint to know any of what he was about to tell him. But as the archer had pointed out before, it was easy to get said information.

"Fifteen agents have been transferred. Four at their request, six at the request of Psych, and the others due to who they knew. Three more were placed in new positions around the Helicarrier to keep them away from main ops. And... Well... One more was jailed," Fury answered. Clint raised an eyebrow, almost like he expected more to be affected. Fury rolled his eyes. "The agent who was jailed was found to have a fully planned strategy to kill not only you but Deputy Director Hill and myself."

"Why?" Fury shrugged. He wasn't going to go into the mentality of why that agent thought they all deserved to die.

"I didn't come here to recount Manhattan," Fury stated, changing the subject. Clint smirked, he had known that all along. He just wanted to prolong the other reason why the Director was there. As said before, Clint didn't want Harris to get in trouble. "Nor did I come to check on you. I actually come to get your report of this latest mission."

"I just woke up after almost dying! Aren't I supposed to be resting or some shit?" Clint whined. There was a snort from his left.

"Not with a concussion and lack of blood, if you'd even rest to begin with," called a female voice that the two had both thought to be asleep. Clint and Fury turned to face the voice and spotted Natasha, Bruce and Steve all staring at them. Giving her a mock smile, Clint was graced with Natasha's narrow gaze, daring him to prove her wrong.

"The doctor was afraid you wouldn't even wake after surgery. He claimed that if you did, he'd like you to stay awake for a minimum of 24 hours," Bruce added. Fury turned back to Clint with an evil smirk on his face.

"So, your report?"

Tee hee! ^_^ Hope you all liked. Review, Favorite and Follow! Till next week!